China’s only danger: A ‘Generation X’ who believes they aren’t communist

When you have a world war, there is no question: We are all living in a postwar world. However, not all subsequent generations have been shaped the same.

In debunking the standard view of the Cultural Revolution in this series – and also showing that, when it came to politics and non-musical revolutions, John Lennon was the status-quo company man and Mao was the real rock ‘n roller – we see that China’s mid-1960s revolution succeeded even though parallel cultural upheavals failed to produce the nearly-identically desired systemic changes across the West.

Because China was seemingly the only 1960s revolution which actually succeeded in rebooting their political system, we are faced with a question to which the Western postwar experience doesn’t really apply: How will China’s post-1960s generations develop, and then lead society?

We all know what followed the West’s political failures of the 1960s:

Baby Boomers have proven to be totally incapable of taking the torch from their “Greatest Generation”. The Clintons, Dubya Bush, Obama and Trump are synonymous with corruption, hypocrisy and stupidity, and both America’s 99% and the rest of the world is unhappily living under their most inglorious reign. That’s not my opinion – just talk to any Westerner and they are totally dissatisfied with their systems, except for the tiny Nordic countries, but they have been conditioned to believe TINA (There Is No Alternative) and are too underpaid to have time to be involved with political alternatives.

The children of Baby Boomers became known as “Generation X”, who became disillusioned, navel-gazing and appallingly apathetic to all things political. This second generation clearly did not think much of their parents; in no uncertain terms they proclaimed that Baby Boomer political “glories” were just lying stories. They were right (excepting only African-Americans, who did not win anything close to what they wanted or deserved but did end Jim Crow).

This 2nd generation refused to honor their parents – probably because their parents set unworthy examples – and it’s certainly true that these Baby Boomer parents actually encouraged their children to rebel, as though willy-nilly rebellion is some sort of virtue. That is an enduring aspect of American culture which remains undeniable today. Furthermore, Generation X was invariably instructed – at home and in the general culture – to not honor any of the gods of their allegedly totally-square “Greatest Generation” grandparents, whose rigid unhipness showed that they were wrong in all ways and at all times.

The result of Generation X is clear – being told they have no ancestors to honor, they honored only themselves. That may sum up the expected view from China.

What they are most defined by, however, is alienation: they were encouraged to be attached to nothing, they abandoned political efforts to improve the world probably because their parents totally failed in this regard, they rejected all authority – and thus the barest unity – and live today in consumerist individualism with at least 3 TVs in every house. They are the first generation to be totally weaned on “identity politics”, which is the idea that my ideas and needs matter, alone; they pride themselves on “being above political parties” and are proud to be inconsistently all over the map. For them, earthly paradise will occur when only their ideas are followed, and I imagine that in their heaven it is just them all alone with God. Perhaps, like Sartre they feel that “hell is other people”, as they are so very alienated.

The religion of this Generation X is sensual, emotional and not logical; it is certainly a personalised “spirituality”, which comes and goes as a muse might. Most aggravatingly, their commandments are personalized and thus unknowable, and this is why they are so very easily offended: their moral (and thus political) structures are totally unpredictable and undependable. They cannot even express their religious convictions when pressed. However, it is considered impolite to ask an American about religion, and the only people who bring it up in public are in America’s lower class.

So we see how thoroughly the Western Baby Boomers’ political failure has been passed on to their next generation: Even though Generation X is about to take the reins and have staffed the lower levels of government for decades, they cannot muster even a handful of prominent, successful politicians in places like the US – everybody sees right through them and finds nothing but will-to-power and individualism. Thus there are nearly NO Generation X leaders in the West. Even France’s Emmanuel Macron, born 1977, could almost be classified as a Millennial, and I note that his presidential portrait included two smartphones.

I’m not going to get into 3rd-generation Western Millennials other than – I see a lot of good things. They are certainly far less ego-driven (I’m a tough guy / I’m Wonder Woman) than the postwar or Boomer generations, and a lot more community-minded. However, I note that if Western-style-TV-from-birth destroyed Generation X, it’s possible smartphones-from-birth will do the same for Millennials. But it’s early….

What’s undeniable is:

China’s equivalent to the Baby Boomer generation certainly did not fail – their Cultural Revolution was not just “tune in, turn on and drop out”. Whether your condemn it or condone it, their student radicals actually were given tremendous political power (by a far more enlightened and politically modern elder leadership) and thus actually DID change things. Indeed, a good proof of the Cultural Revolution’s success is all the opprobrium heaped on it by the West today, where the reactionaries clearly won: Nixon & De Gaulle re-elected, societal changes limited to culture and not political structure, etc.

(Sidebar: It is interesting to read current reports from Egypt, seven years after Tahrir Square (where I reported during the fall of Mubarak): Egypt’s revolution has also totally failed, and they are now following the same pattern as the West. Egyptians report that their failed revolution did at least produce more societal openness (mainly regarding sexuality), and allow more challenging of traditional and religious structures and ideas, but there is certainly less freedom, both economic and political. (As Martin Luther King said: There is no freedom without economic freedom, and he was not talking about the 1%’s rights under neoliberalism, LOL!) Al-Sissi has the country pointed in a 100% neoliberal direction, and we can predict that life for the average Egyptian will be far less free in the coming years because they will be far more poor, even if they are “enriched’ by the ability to discuss sex in public and the far less-desired right to be a proselytising atheist. There is no reason why Egypt’s 1% would not make these cultural concessions in order to not touch the political and economic structure which keep them above such things, of course.)

So, Westerners can project their own experiences onto China as hard as they can, but the success of the Cultural Revolution created a major postwar divergence for China, and one which is as unappreciated today as the Cultural Revolution itself.

What we can do, and only perhaps, is to set our our gauge back, due to the Cultural Revolution’s success: their “Greatest Generation”, the one who actually won a war, is thus equivalent to the Western Baby Boomers.

Were I a Chinese, that would make me a part of the “Baby Boomer” generation (I am 40); if I marry a Chinese lady and have children (Inshallah), then our kids would be in China’s Generation X. But…is there such a generation already?

Bad news to report: Young Chinese say they aren’t communist

I have Chinese friends, colleagues, and multiple family members who have lived for years in China. The Chinese of this generation – my peers – routinely, but not universally, say that yes, China is not communist.

Surprised I’d admit that, eh?! Think I’m unobjective, do ya?!

This is truly a real issue which must be examined. Is it possible that the Western press is actually right?

I say: “No”. Or rather, I say: “I do not really know”.

The reality is that I have never lived in China, have only visited, and that the Chinese people I know are all necessarily hugely influenced by the West.

Even the native Chinese in my family emigrated away from China, even if they went back, and as an immigrant myself I can say: you don’t become an immigrant be being 100% in love with your home country…or you would still be there. It’s also very easy to have an inferiority complex about your home country, because the reality is that immigrants are literally trying to survive in a foreign land and make some friends: it certainly does not make one popular to move to a new country and proclaim: “My home is better than this.” That is only for imperialists, who are there to steal and run, and thus are not truly immigrants. And also for hard-headed, annoying journalists like myself!

My point is – immigrants are not accurate representatives of their home nations: the “Irish” of America are not at all like the Irish in Ireland. Immigrants are certainly a minority, anyway. Therefore, you should largely ignore that combative headline six paragraphs above.

However, perhaps there is a genuine risk inside China?

The two post-Cultural Revolution generations – do they believe their parents are the “Greatest Generation” for winning their war?

I don’t know what goes on at the Chinese dinner table, but I know it matters

The Cultural Revolution veterans – who know from hard fighting and major personal sacrifice that capitalism is the enemy, that a bit of capitalism don’t spoil no socialist show, that they will never let capitalism dominate – have proven their totally-square socialist bonafides daily for decades. But the young “Boomer Generation” which runs from roughly 30-50 years old…many of them have only lived during the Deng-era capitalist reforms – are they solid socialists? And this group’s children, China’s “Millennials”, might be saying: “My father he ain’t no Che Guevara – he’s a total capitalist!”

The reality is that one’s character is formed at the dinner table, when you are at the elbows of your elders.

“Is old Yeye (father’s father) still going on about his time in the sticks during the ‘60s? Doesn’t he know that my Baba said The Economist called that a huge mistake? I sure don’t want to go to the country – it smells like cow dung! Can I leave the table? I want to watch my favourite TV show again in my room.”

If such a scene is happening regularly in Chinese homes…they will have a problem. That scene has been happening all over the West since the first Boomers started having kids in 1965, and it can happen to China.

(LOL, the primary fault here is calling something your grandfather did “stupid” within earshot of your parents. Certainly that was a hanging offence in my household….)

Ultimately the problem is cultural, and one of corruption: not just monetary or judicial or political, but corruption at the dinner table night after night. This is social and thus ethical corruption. This is a common theme in Iranian politics, but something which the West almost refuses to even consider, which I find so very, very strange.

Such concerns have been falsely labelled as “conservatism” by the West’s fake-leftists. They fail to see that the dinner table is also where leftist revolutionaries can be formed, or not formed. Debunking capitalist propaganda takes more than just one discussion, and more than just one day of shouting slogans at a protest.

So maybe China is capitalist, dammit? Is there a Chinese Generation X, which will take power from the Cultural Revolution generation, and are they really as bad as the West’s Generation X?

I can’t possibly say, to be honest.

Even though what I have described are easily foreseeable, universal responses to modern human experiences, to give an actual answer on this cultural issue is far beyond me; dinner-table dynamics are the most complex in any society, and they go beyond my Chinese ken.

That’s why I’m glad to see the answer so emphatically given in the title of Jeff J. Brown’s

The reality is that we non-Chinese simply MUST defer to Brown on the question of whether China’s two younger post-Cultural Revolution generations are committed communists or not, due to our lack of knowledge of 2018 China. Cultures change, and quickly: I’m sure an alien visiting Iran in 1978 and 2018 – just 40 years – would be quite surprised at the changes (and pleasantly). Fairbank could never answer this issue, as he passed in 1991. Read Fairbank if you like, but you simply cannot expect answers about what Chinese 2018 culture is like.

However, what neither Fairbank, nor myself, nor you have to completely defer to Brown is regarding: the question of whether or not China is communist. That is a question of political analysis of China’s structures, motivations and results. The idea that “all governments are the same”, or some such nonsense, is mere political nihilism: socialism and capitalism have clear structures, policies and easily-traceable patterns which mostly contradict each other.

So why should I kowtow to the political analysis of China of a fictitious Chinese immigrant…if he or she lacks broad political knowledge, or is overly-influenced by Western media? Indeed, to read Western journalism on socialism is to read (not even propaganda, because that requires intelligence) nonsense, stereotyping and sensationalism. “I am Chinese, therefore my political analysis of China is superior to yours” does not hold water.

What does hold water is: “I am Chinese, therefore my cultural analysis of China is superior to yours.”

Certainly. But it is quite easy to understand a lot of culture but zero politics, I think we’ll all agree.

However, Brown is not just culturally literate regarding modern China but also obviously politically literate across multiple lands to an extremely high degree. I am not trying to sell his book: I am pointing out the validity of his analysis for our era.

Therefore, if he says China is communist (dammit!) in 2017, then we truly cannot find too many more trustworthy sources in English. Fairbank’s book is two decades old and, despite all its mainstream banking and its Harvard imprimatur, it is truly out of date in modern cultural analysis by a generation.

So you can ask your Chinese friends, as I do, and maybe they’ll say that China isn’t communist…and I wouldn’t say that Brown “knows more about China” than they do – certainly – but I certainly feel quite comfortable positing that Brown may understand Chinese politics & geopolitics better than they do.

So is Part 8’s headline a major concern in 2018 China, or not? Well…alienation, rampant individualism, and corruption of all types always are, aren’t they?

‘Gen X’ is always an existential threat, and thus every generation must be righteous

Alienation was not discovered in a buried chest in 1946 in Europe – total dissatisfaction with one’s culture and leaders, total disbelief in the power of religion, total post-traumatic stress disorder caused by war and pillage, total disbelief in the ability of humans to create a better world, and a feeling of certainty regarding the total power of human destructiveness is not at all a new sentiment in human history.

But alienation – while real and important and which cannot be ignored – is something which faithful people don’t have time for: they have to get to work.

However, alienation amid peace and plenty is a first-world problem, I believe. And that is where China nearly is – the first-world.

They are not the first socialist country to get there – there is absolutely no doubt that the USSR was on par with the West economically and superior culturally – but they are the first one to reach their level since the demise of the USSR.

They are about to have first-world problems, like the Japanese tourists who get hospitalised by “Paris shock”, i.e. the disparity between the romantic image of Paris and the reality that most looks and treatment here equate to, when compared with polite Japan: “eat dirt and die”. The medicine for such “victims” is clearly a strong dose of Chinese Cultural Revolution farm work, with a heavy emphasis on manure spreading….

Absurdities aside, China truly represents the undeniable, at least medium-term, rebirth of socialism and communism…even though the West declared it to be dead, and went whole-hog into the maximum form of capitalism possible, neoliberalism.

Because it is clearly not dead, their only choice is to co-opt it by falsely claiming its success. I imagine this is the root of Brown’s title.

Thus the cultural threat of denying China’s “communist-ness” – and thus denying Chinese history and the Chinese experience today – is why Xi is so important: a Gorbachev-like pandering to the West, or a Brezhnev-like tolerance of stagnation / corruption / black market / “reactionary dissent and sedition is what ‘free speech’ is”…is all that can turn the tide of China’s rise.

However, I always hate to reduce nations to just one person. Especially in socialist-inspired countries which had modern revolutions, focusing on the leader is a structurally inaccurate to describe their societies, which is why propaganda efforts do exactly this. China – like Cuba, Iran, etc. – is not run by a person but by a vanguard party which has grassroots-elected, democratic support. The preferred presidential candidates of Iran’s “Supreme Leader” have repeatedly lost, for example – these are modern democracies, not Macronian liberal warlords.

Therefore, let us think of Xi only as a symbol for what all of China’s middle-aged and elders must be like, both now and in the generations to come:

The role of Xi: not spiking the ball on the 1-yard line

If Xi is part of the “Greatest Generation”, surely he rejects such a moniker: it implies that China has already peaked, already won. China has further to go, and many to help bring along with them, lest they be selfish capitalists.

The good news is: Xi spent 7 lice-filled years helping to bring the countryside up to modern levels during the Cultural Revolution – he will not be hospitalised by a rude French waiter.

And Xi is doing the opposite of Gorbachev – he is following, per Brown, in Mao’s footsteps by leading anti-corruption campaigns, cleaning up corruption in the Peoples’ Liberation Army and reducing propaganda contamination points the West so desperately needs open, now that they have no “hard power” option.

This is probably why Xi is so popular: he is doing what the People want – strengthening them and their chosen institutions. China has just ended their 2-term limit for presidents, with widespread domestic support…and I say: good call.

Of course China should want their “Greatest Generation” (the Cultural Revolution generation) to stay in power: have you seen how bad the West’s two ensuing generations are doing?! China is so close to being a humanity-improving superpower…and you want them to spike the ball on the 1-yard line because George Washington said so?

George Washington, the root cause of of the two-term trend, quit after two terms – it’s pretty easy to hand the reins to your successor and say: “Keep stealing land and enslaving people: boom, economic growth issue – solved! Now don’t bother me – I’m retired and have many slaves to beat and/or rape.”

Xi is likely looking at Germany’s liberal strongwoman Angela Merkel – now in her 4th term of control – and seeing the positive national effects of long-term leadership within a democracy.

He is likely also looking towards Iran’s model, where the elected role of the Supreme Leader provides a constant counterweight in favor of ideological purity, against backsliding and in favor of the defense of Iran’s popular, anti-imperialist, socialist-inspired revolution. It’s not all the economy, stupid – who is keeping track of the intangible and spiritual within the political?

(It is ironic that Communist China cares more openly for this issue of spirit than the rabidly secular West, as is abundantly proved by Brown’s chapter “21st Century Street Art for the Communist Body And Soul”, which documents state “propaganda” efforts on totalitarian obsessions such as “Dedication”, “Equality”, “Freedom”, “Harmony”, “Honest”, etc. No such propaganda efforts exist in the West, because a government is what it promotes: the West promotes neoliberalism – no government – and so they produce no art or advertising designed to help people better themselves, because the government is not supposed to care or get involved.)

Germany’s democracy is West European (bourgeois), Iran’s is Islamic, and China’s is Chinese socialist and none are perfect – as only God is – but we cannot deny that all three are indeed working democracies, with voting citizens, regular protests, repeated polls of support for their systems, etc. They have structural weak points, but they knew the weak points when they created and kept supporting their chosen system (although it seems totally incorrect to call postwar Germany’s imposed system “chosen”, and there is also the ongoing US occupation).

At the very least, all three of these nations are certainly not authoritarian dictatorships nor neocolonial puppets, like most of the developing world is, and that is no small success to a journalist surveying the world in 2018. It’s an absurdity that Iran and China are portrayed as such.

Xi is also looking at Russia, where Putin had the cunning to defy George Washington via recourse to legalistic explanations. This was not very honest…but the Russian people voted repeatedly, and the Russian system is just as democratic as any of the above three, so outsiders cannot say the Russian People don’t largely have what they want within their system. No “humanitarian intervention” needed here either, please.

Because of the US and EU’s military impregnability and the lack of any outside neo-colonial influence, they simply cannot comprehend the feeling among Iran, Cuba or others of being forced to operate under the gun. But certainly, in a time of crisis – WWII – the US abandoned the George Washington precedent to save their nation, as Roosevelt served 4 terms. Amid constant US belligerence Xi can fairly claim to be under threat (fairly…but certainly not after one more decade of socialist economic success, especially as the Eurozone’s never-reported Lost Decade is likely to turn into a Japanese-like Lost Score); France’s Hollande or Macron cannot make the same claim legitimately, but they certainly did whatever they wanted via citing the threat of “Islamic terrorism”.

So if China was communist, dammit, when Brown’s book was published in 2017, they will certainly remain communist for another 5 or 10 more years under Xi.

Xi’s success and, as Brown’s book demonstrates over and over, Xi’s socialist bonafides cannot be denied. Rules are made to be broken, but not the dream of socialism.

The world needs Chinese socialism to remain strong…obviously

It is said that one’s true character is revealed after one becomes successful and achieves their dreams.

For some, like Xi, the dream is moderate prosperity. For some, like Iranians, the dream is paradise on earth as much as possible in order to earn paradise in the Afterlife. For some, like the French, the dream is (I am quoting French people here) to be Gerard Depardieu: to be constantly eating, constantly drinking, constantly posing like an actor, to be considered a great artist just for posing, constantly arguing, constantly undermining everyone else’s faith in anything. For some, like Americans, the dream is everything in the world you can possibly imagine. It’s possible there may be some stereotypical nonsense here….

Let’s stop with the nonsense: China is socialist, dammit!

Capitalism is only a tool – in order to build wealth in order to have something to share – and a necessary one to construct communism, per Marx. China’s ideals are certainly communist and there certainly is a very real, very effective, very concerned Communist Party in charge. Anyway, communism is an ideal communists pray to (the atheistic communists, that is, who are definitely a tiny minority); socialism is what working people do to improve the world a bit more today.

Ultimately, this article asked the question: What is “21st century socialism” when successful?

Because they are no longer susceptible to intense outside pressure, China is certainly the one which will most elucidate this answer, and with the most intense global and historical ramifications.

There is an easy way for China to put this very long-running “are they or aren’t they communist” question to rest: give more support for other nations in regions which are certain to encounter Western resistance, and possibly hurt China’s bottom line by doing so.

Cuba used to do this, Iran does this…but these are costly. China helps far more than they get credit for, and certainly they gave in Korea and Vietnam, but their twin socialist success in both economic growth and economic equality is getting to the point where cost is not truly a major issue if they have socialist-inspired ideals. China has remained rather (pre-WWII) Stalinist in foreign policy since Deng, and that can’t continue forever.

They aren’t about to start giving major support to Palestine, sadly, but China needs to start throwing its weight around in favor of socialism again. Foreign help will show the young generation that sacrifices must be made (thus be content with “moderate prosperity”), and it will also force Westerners to accept their socialism-ness. All this increased acceptance of Chinese democratic socialism will only safeguard China further.

But if there’s one thing China has done better than any socialist-inspired nation it is: playing the long game. And the communist long-game is, clearly, nationalist Stalinism until universal Trotskyism. At least, that’s what they will call it if communism goes universal (of course, some Trotskyists won’t be happy until communism AND atheism goes universal, thus pushing their idea of victory to the realm of, I believe, impossibility). But you don’t skip steps in a game – unless you want to lose.

However, the idea of Stalinism (socialism in one country), which Maoism has clearly incorporated, is essentially: take care of your own backyard, and wait for the rest of the neighbourhood to catch up. But what does China do when their backyard can’t be made more beautiful? Either you harmoniously share the wealth with your neighbors, or the cycle of success ends and you wane into unharmonious capitalism.

A self-sufficient, safe, thriving China…choosing to implode into capitalism?! The USSR did it, but I think China is not blind to history.

But…people do crazy things which cannot be explained, the electron’s path still cannot be predicted, and political science is not a science.

Some questions may remain up for debate, but in 2018 it is certainly crazy to call China capitalist, dammit!

Series Postscript:

I used many proofs for this series from Jeff J. Brown’s book, not just that final line, so I’d like to stress: If one wants to find seemingly unprecedented documentation and analysis of modern China …one would be much better off buying his book than reading this series.

I’d also like to say that I wrote this series entirely without any personal involvement from Brown whatsoever, so there can be no question regarding my objectivity.

I hope this “double-book review” has shown just how different China scholarship can be, and also how much scholarship can change in just 20 years. I also tried to provide a few original ideas to put up for discussion, and to show how China’s experience can be useful in other countries.

I do owe Brown a debt of gratitude for writing such a fine work on which I leaned heavily. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the legal doctrine of “fair use”, which allowed me to quote extensive parts of Brown’s and John King Fairbank’s books without violating copyright laws!

To the dearly departed Mr. Fairbank: Yours is certainly not an unuseful book, but quite reactionary by even 20th century political standards. However, because you explained your scholarship and methods so clearly, when less biased and more modern ideas could be applied to your data more accurate answers on Communist China could be produced.

Finally: I’d like to point out that this series has been very clearly a political analysis of China, and not a cultural analysis. I have almost exclusively re-examined historical events and described political structures & policies.

Brown and Fairbank are China scholars who are qualified to make non-Chinese cultural analyses of China. However, political analyses are the privilege of every citizen – from the bus driver to the professor. Political analyses must be so very democratically available in order to constantly find – via merit and consensus – socio-political solutions to socio-political problems, the most pressing of which are, I believe, universal.

It seems quite incorrect to conclude this series with something focusing on myself….

New analyses are needed on China, and on many other socialist-inspired nations – the events of 1989-91 were a long time ago, and the Great Recession is proving, still, that the alleged victory of capitalism was very short-lived. Whatever socialism’s failures have been and are, the 1%-led Western model clearly cannot lead any country, as their leaders do not even wish to capably lead their own nations and communities – just their own fortunes.

***********************************

This is the final article in an 8-part series which compared old versus new Western scholarship on China.

Here is the list of articles which have been published, and I hope you will find them useful in your leftist struggle!

China’s only danger: A ‘Generation X’ who thinks they aren’t communist

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television. He can be reached on Facebook.

The Essential Saker II: Civilizational Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire

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Many thanks to all for all the kind words about this series. Very glad that some people got something out of it.

This final part was the most speculative of all the articles, and I really just tacked it on at the last minute because I think it’s an interesting concept to explore. However, we cannot imagine that China developed exactly like the West over the many decades following WWII – and I wrote that expressly.

The larger issue is: will revolutionary sentiment stay at the level needed to advance, or will will China – like many others – give up the good fight. This is a cultural question I’m not fully-equipped to answer – as I wrote – but it is certainly worth discussing and certainly a question which applies – in its own way – to everyone’s personal nation.

A book on Iran? LOL, thank you, but I’m a daily hack journalist – these multi-part series are taking my time away from that, but I still view them as long-form journalism.

Great series, Ramin. I do appreciate your effort writing this interesting series on China. Good job. Thanks.

My interest in China goes beyond politics. I have been working there since 2002 – part-time teaching / consultancies, and the country and the people fascinate me.

I bought Jeff Brown’s book. I am still reading it (~20% done!)… Considering that the book may be read by a wide audience, his occasional defense/comparison of socialism against capitalism may help to clarify some points for those who have never been there. It is a very interesting book and I am learning a lot! Thanks for recommending it.

Of course China isn’t a communist country, the only people who claim so are communists who really want to find that one decent communist country. Communist is awful. China started rapidly improving after rejecting communism and that’s that. Younger people in China don’t consider themselves communists because they know better.

No, Ramin Mazaheri and Jeff J. Brown have it right. (Kurt Gossweiler said the same) Yours is the Western (Gorbachev’s) narrative, and the exact opposite of the truth.

Communism (Marxism-Leninism) got a bad name, all right, because the Jewish mafia (with partial success) tried to use it, hijack it (Trotsky & Co.), in order to destroy their adversaries. Besides, they hijacked, sabotaged, and corrupted it again post-Stalin/Beria. (under Khrushchev until Gorbachev, who finally brought it down)

China never had such a 5th column of Western agents, saboteurs, pathological liars, history-falsifiers, traitors within its system, and actually successfully used the West (capitalism) in order to modernize fast.

Ramin, great post.
I’d like to add to what you wrote the following: Historically speaking, not that old going back to the 1970’s, or maybe shortly after the “departure” of Mao. China was under the “cooperation” influence by the American Economists, who offered her the promise of enrichment if it worked with them to destroy USSR. China jumped on the wagon to the riches and well there it is, it got them. Also, since the 1980’s and the 1990’s the word “Communist” was a really bad thing to admit to belong to.
I am going to sidestep here and touch on the “generation X”. Actually, since I am the “baby boomer” I remember being totally submersed in the culture pushed by the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, Rolling Stones, The Supremes (with Diana Ross) and the likes. This continued with all sorts off other off-spins, which were picked up by my kids who happened to be the Generation-X. It wasn’t until the destruction of Yugoslavia that I started to wake up from the “narcotic influence” of the media. I tried to work on my kids, but my daughter is a lost cause.
As for the Chinese of the same generation, they are trying to fit in and be a part of the Western Culture, hence their rejection of anything “Communist”.
Sidestepping, I am pretty sure that if we look at Iran, and here you can be more of an authority on the subject,
Iran during the days of the Rule of Pahlavi, Iran was subjected to the same pro-western propaganda. It took an “old man” who realized the existential danger to Iranian people to pushed the religion on the people and thus brought the back to their own cultural roots.
This is what young Chinese people need. The ultimate danger coming from the communism is the “Internationalism” which poses the destruction of any national existence. Remember it came from Marx, who came from “non-national” background. Any sense of national identity is a danger for his lot, hence the “Globalism”., which is a redressed “capitalist Internationalism”

Well, I’ve found this 8 part series by Mr. Mazaheri sometimes confusing to read.
But he did get me curious enough to spend $28 for Jeff Brown’s new book, “China Is Communist, Dammit!”. I’m on a limited income but this was money well spent!

It is an amazing book. It topples all the western anti-Communist, anti-China propaganda I’ve been accepting as fact all these many years. I think it is true that a westerner can not understand the Chinese mindset, or viewpoint, without understanding Chinese history. Jeff Brown takes us deep into the formation of the Chinese mindset, so that as a westerner, I now deeply appreciate what China has been through since the late 1800s, at the hands of the Anglo/American empires, and the steps it has taken to get out from under them. One in four Chinese were addicted to opium in the British Empire’s Opium War and rape of China. Much later, the Tiananmen Square uprising, as an example, was a CIA attempt to inspire a Chinese revolution. The conflict in Tibet was also a CIA attempt at generating a Chinese anti government uprising. The Chinese government, along with the Chinese people, with good reason, do not trust the United States, and recognize the U.S. as a continuing enemy.

The book is an easy read, sometimes humorous and personal, always interesting and usually thought provoking. We in the United States could learn a lot about democracy as China’s “communism” is based on honest democratic elections from the local area on up. Who knew that there are nine political parties in China, the Communist party by far the largest? People take voting seriously and demand much from their government. China is obviously huge with several hundred large citizen protests daily demanding one thing or another from various levels of government.

China has a huge labor union that actually does what unions should be doing for their workers. Even Wal-Mart is unionized in China.

I thought about including the various chapter titles for your benefit but decided there are too many as I’d be writing a book here. I knew nothing true about Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, until discovering The Saker’s website, which I return to daily. I’ve since become a huge fan of Russia and V. Putin. After reading “China Is Communist, Dammit!”, I’ve also become a fan of China and Xi Jinping. Get the book, you’ll enjoy it. I’m starting to reread what I have underlined, which is a lot. I appreciate the posters here. Thank you!

My impression of China’s major cities, albeit a short one, was that Communism wasn’t very obvious at all. Even authoritarianism was not visible on the everyday surface but it was clear to me that it was a layer not very far down.
However China is a large country with many regions.

Ramin: (plus anyone else who is knowledgeable about this): what is the essence of Iranian SOCIALISM? secondary question: what is Chinese socialism and how does it differ from Iranian socialism. Many thanks for this help.

Hi, this is Sao from Perú, a Maoist, who wrote a comment to your last article (comment number 71).

I am writing because of the very nice words you dedicated to Chairman Mao (as a socialist genius), and then I found out that you are wrong about socialism. Actually you are not socialist at all. And your series proves it.

So you are worried that this generation X will deny that China is socialist (or communist) because they will not have understood all that was achieved during the Cultural Revolution. And your question is: What is “21st century socialism” when successful?

I will try to express my standpoint on both subject matters.

First, this generation of Chinese (the people living in China) will not say that they live in a socialist country because they aren’t. China ceased to be socialist and there was a big fight in 1976 when Mao died. Mao´s project was suppressed and there are very clear examples which you don’t want to see because you opted not to. Deng said Mao 70%?? Please read history: Deng was totally opposed to Mao. They prohibited Mao’s writings and many many Mao’s ideas were buried. During the Cultural Revolution the people’s communes were upheld as a way of advancing toward collectivism. Aren’t these projects buried? The urban-rural divide (and this you have not mention at all in your article) is more divided than ever. For the same reason you wrote about the urbanites, they are not interested at all in advancing the countryside. And the fact that Xi lived seven years in the countryside will not make him any more peasant-friendly. Come on, don’t be naïve. One other example is: medicine. Compare the medicine of those days with these days. So you have socialist medicine and the capitalist one. And I will insist on you saying that the superrich makes concessions to the poor. Well that doesn’t really make me laugh.

About this 21st century socialism I want to refer to one thing: you said: France is democratic, so is Germany, the United States, Iran, etc. and you refer to a “humanity improving power”. You said that capitalism is a tool. Well I say the democratic system is also a tool at the service of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, the ruling class will prefer a democratic system (Mao actually said that, his of course was a proletarian dictatorship) because it has the power of swaying the people. Making the people believe that they are free. Of course the Chinese are not free. They live just like any westerner with the salary and the merchandise that the salary can buy.

And Brown’s book is just a book and it won’t make China a socialist system. Mao promoted a campaign against Confucius but today’s China spread Confucius worldwide. Aren’t they ashamed of themselves? Blurring the essence of socialism and covering the exploitation.

Of course History will judge. You say that Xi is loved by everyone in China. Please don’t be naïve. Here in Perú last presidents: Toledo started as a shoe-shiner; Alan García was elected twice (he is a Odebrecht lover), and people still prefer Fujimori. So democracy works in a mysterious way in favour of the ruling class. People will love Xi as long as there is prosperity in China. But being prosperous doesn’t mean socialism reins. If you stand on the side of the poor you should think more like them. Yes, we must go deeper.

An interesting and well-informed read – as with most articles on theSaker. I’ve recently become a big fan!

I feel I am hardly qualified to comment on these pages but I’ll chip in my h’apporth for what it’s worth..

China.. ok, I’ll tell you this..take all the politics out of it, communist, socialist, capitalist with Chinese characteristics, whatever, out of the equation..

Leave all the history, the mistakes, the upheavals behind.. and you have this unassailable fact:

The Chinese are Chinese.

This may seem a stupid statement at first glance. But.

Given the disparity and disunion, the confusion and dysfunctionality that is standard in most of the rest of the globe, the Chinese have something that is an increasingly rare quality in our ‘modern world’ – unity.

A unity that exists between every Chinese person – simply because they are Chinese – no matter the ethnic demographics, past allegiances, wrongs or rights.. Chinese – plain and simple.

There’s a bond between people here that is unbreakable, and unshakeable. ‘When the chips are down’ – type solid unity. (Perhaps not least because of the previous two centuries..) But nonetheless..

I can talk about this because I’m here, I live in China, and I feel strongly that this bond may yet prove a saving grace for us all.

Yes! Beautifully said! That’s what I understand after reading Jeff Brown’s “China’s Communist, Dammit!”. There is an overall cohesion within the 56 “peoples” within the Chinese society forming a giant “We Chinese” pulling together to uplift us all. It’s part of the family, educational, and societal upbringing. And it includes the government at all levels. It works!

We have almost no cohesion holding American’s together. We’ve been divided and conquered. Race against race, religion against religion, denomination against denomination, women against men, gays against straight, lesbians against trans-sexuals, the 1% against the 99%. China sounds pretty good to me. Where do I sign up?

As I’ve said in an earlier post, “China is Communist, dammit!” is an important book. The west has a lot to learn from the Chinese.

Back in 2004 I attended a Forum in MacKay, Queensland organised by Selwyn Johnson, where one of the speakers, a local businessman who had spent much of his time in Indonesia informed his audience that one Indonesian General had stated that there were only two ‘Communist’ countries left in South East Asia; Vietnam and Australia.

I BELIEVE HIM!

I do not like this Australia that I reside in, it is loathsome, Trotskyite, feminist and degrading of virtually everything. Our politicians, like the colonial days still cling to the coat-tails of ‘Uncle Sam’ in the same desperate need that their predecessors clung to the petticoats of Britannia. Australia could never reach its full potential whilst controlled by such servility.

Our media is of the same ilk; liars, thieves and murderers of truth, integrity and honesty, and it is the media that sets the tones for our intellectually ignorant politicians of all sides and parties. The poet, A B Paterson got it spot on when he wrote, “When Darcy rode the mule”.

Communism was instigated by Karl Marx and his associate Frederick Engels and both, once their revolution of 1848 failed dismally fled to ‘their’ mother England, which should suggest to the unwashed that that was where their ‘masters’ resided. Their surviving minions fled to New York in America just in time for the California gold rushes, and continued their subversive activities.

To suggest that the modern Chinese should believe they are still Communist, is to suggest that they are in the very same mould as we Australians, and virtually every South East country and their people are aware of the failed Communist agenda in China. Both China and Russia have moved on from their ‘Communist’ era, but the likes of the UK and the USA still haven’t quite got used to the fact that they are ‘out of date’ and decomposing.

If you have problems digesting the ‘Communistic’ tendencies of the UK and USA, then just remember who it was that paid for Trotsky and his 300 odd Jewish followers from New York. Rothschild’s New York Banks of course, which should then tell you that the US ‘Capitalist’ system was part of the same coin as the ‘Communist’ system, so to speak.

So, should the Chinese consider themselves ‘Socialist’? Again, never, for although ‘Socialistic’ tendencies have been around since tribal villages, the name has been tainted by Communism, and often has been used as an alias for that ideology.

And furthermore, if the Chinese study their history they may note that the very people who gave them ‘Communism’ also gave them opium, the Opium Wars, and the theft and debauchery of their native home, so why on earth should they consider themselves still ‘Communist’? Even Russia is over that naïve thought.

China was a great nation for what, how many centuries? Do you think that China would remain a defeated and robbed vassal of British and American Robber Barons? The Robber Barons decision to use China as a Mill, is a reminder of those very same people closing the factories in Manchester and moving them to India , for greater profits, of course. It has helped accelerate China’s re-entry to super-power status, but China was always going to return to that status, and Communism was never the driving force, China itself was the force, and its people are well aware of that fact.

And never forget that Communism and Capitalism are simply the obverse and the reverse of the same silver coin, just one of the thirty pieces of silver so often quoted.

Oh yes, the Great Commonwealth on which the sun never set. What is it now?

Well there is Hong Kong which was usurped for the Drug Lord Sassoon and his cronies in the ‘East India Company’. It has reverted back to China. There is Uganda of which the UK. the US and Israel selected a former army sergeant, Idi Amin to rule, and look what happened. Don’t forget Cameroon of which several of their athletes fled during the Commonwealth games in Queensland last month, and now seek ‘refugee’ status.

Then there was the Food bowl of Africa, once called Rhodesia after Cecil Rhodes, but then ‘gifted’ to the dictator, Robert Mugabe and renamed Zimbabwe. When the Rhodesians objected, Heinz Kissinger ‘advised’ them and when the local natives, mostly blacks decided to oust Mugabe, look how the ‘British Commonwealth’ reacted. They brought in Ari ben Menashe and Alexander Henri Legault to set up Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean leader of the Opposition, and thus protected the demise of Zimbabwe.

Now we have South Africa, from which the ‘apartheid’ regime was kicked out and replaced by the former terrorist Nelson Mandela. Now that Mandela has ‘passed on’ The South African Regime has stated that they will now follow the same path as Zimbabwe. But what does all of this mean?

Well if you read ‘The Reesian theory of warfare’, you may understand that this ‘evolution’ by the British Commonwealth Countries goes back to just prior to WW2 and moves made by the then Police Special Branches of those countries, and thus these moves were not accidental, but contrived.

Some people may have even read of the conversation between FDR and Winston Churchill, where FDR told Churchill that the UK had to give up its Commonwealth, and Churchill didn’t object. Some people may have even read of the various Banking Institutions involved with ‘terrorist’ activities, or of Marc Rich being the bagman for the PLO and of course every ‘Terrorist’ group had its headquarters in London. I wonder why?

But let’s have some more fun and look at the latest events. Back in the 60’s the media was suggesting that perhaps it would be a good idea if the British Royal Family expanded and started to marry into the African community. Of course such things never happened.

There was never any talk about the American divorcee, Mrs Wallis Simpson and her affair with Edward back in 1936, and when Parliament objected Edward abdicated, something the Queen Mother, Elizabeth never forgave Edward for as it placed too heavy a burden on the younger brother King George.

But; lo and behold what has happened today? Prince Harry has married an American divorcee who has ancestry from Africa; just exactly what those scribes from the 1960’s were writing about. How times have changed, or actually never changed, as Harry will never be king, but he is a marvellous advertisement for the UK, just ask Piers Morgan.

And in the background, always in the background there lurks the Banking sector, the owners of those thirty pieces of silver, those manipulators and connivers who continuously strive for profits and gain that have always been detrimental to the poor peasant, be he or she from China, or Africa, America or Australia. Yes, Rothschilds does also own America, Woodrow Wilson gave America to him back in 1913 as a Christmas present.

Andrew, just as an afterthought. My son, after graduation from the university, being brainwashed by the “trotskites” who infest all the universities decided to sign up for “International management studies” and work for NGO. In order to get the diploma from that course he had to “volunteer” so he was sent to South Africa, where at one of the universities had to educate students with regards to “safe sex” and HIV protection. While in South Africa he and his African friends went to “Zimbabwe” for a short visit. I will stop here as you have given an excellent explanation of things.

I think you don’t have to worry that China will become rapaciously capitalist. The country’s long history has an enormous cultural momentum; Confucianism is thousands of years old, and it is mostly socialist. Not perfectly a socialist philosophy, but mostly so: everybody contributing to the community has always been a major part of Chinese culture. This is probably why the Cultural Revolution worked, and why it’s still working: because China is Confucian. So while the branding may change, from Communism (dammit!) to Captalism, I think we can be reasonably sure that China as a whole won’t change much.

The branding might change, or appear to change. China is so enormous that even a minor part of it, the capitalist part, can be huge. The country as a whole, however, will continue to be Confucianist, regardless.

Yes, well said Cyril! Jeff Brown’s book “China Is Communist, Dammit!” addresses the thousands of years of Confucianism underlying China’s “communism” at the very beginning of his book. As you say, Confucianism is deeply ingrained in the Chinese viewpoint and not likely to “go away”.
As an aside, the American actress Shirley McLaine was the first westerner invited to tour China as it opened to the west. The proviso from the Chinese government was that she must bring a group of American women of diverse backgrounds with her…religious, political, political. If I remember correctly, there were about 25 women. Her film crew were adamant feminist lesbians. By the end of their long tour through China, they had all experienced nervous breakdowns because their experience totally conflicted with their former beliefs about China and her people. They couldn’t understand the overall friendliness, helpfulness, and honesty they found in China that was lacking back home in the U.S. I think her book was entitled “The Other Side Of the Mountain”.
I highly recommend Jeff Brown’s deeply informative book.

Thank you Ramin Mazaheri for sharing your considerable wisdom and analysis. I happen to resemble an old baby boomer with leftist tendencies. Who has only recently been awakened. I don’t know if you can really appreciate the pure joy that enveloped me when for the first time I realized that Iran was in fact not a crazy, murderous American hating fanatical religious dictatorship but rather a socialist, theocratic, democracy. That blew my mind. After ruminating on that for a while I was able to see that Iran was really quite moral and ethical. That they stood up for their beliefs and they were willing to stand against some of the biggest bullies in the world. This put me squarely on their side, The side of righteousness.
Along my path of awakening I came to be concerned about the capitalist nature of so called “Communist China”
I was looking to see if there were signs of the western cabal embedded in the Chinese system. What are your thoughts on that subject? Jeff J. Brown is pretty convincing when he proclaims that “China is Communist Dammit”. Somewhere along the line I have read that Zionism and Communism are two sides of the same coin. That thought scares me. Can you shed any light on that for me.
You talk about successive generations having different sensibilities because they have different life experiences. That is certainly true for American baby boomers. Us boomers have had it pretty darn easy compared to most of the worlds people. And yet There is a gnawing feeling that something is just not right. I realize now that that feeling is the unconscious awareness of the unseen rulers. There is a youtube video of the British politician Tony Benn giving a brief summary of neoliberalism, near the end he proclaims that each generation must fight the same fight over and over again and then he says “There are no final victories and there are no final defeats.” I try to remind myself of that from time to time.

Sorry to intrude here but I can’t keep still about this. Zionism is the political concept of “Israel First” at any cost to or loss of life of non Jews. Not all Jews are Zionists and there are more Zionist Christians in the United States than there are Jews in Israel. The United States government is infiltrated with Zionist “Israel Firsters”, many with dual U.S./Israeli citizenship. They vote and act on behalf of Israel, not the United States.

I don’t see Communism trying to take over the world. China and Russia are both defensive not expansionist. I don’t see anything good coming out of Israel and I see lots of good coming out of China and Russia. If you want to be concerned, be concerned about Zionism.

If you want to understand Zionism, look closely at what Zionists have done to Palestine and the Palestinians. Zionism is deeply racist and practices much of what Nazi Germany did to the Jews. Zionist Jews are now doing the same things to Palestinians. Zionists try to hide their Zionism with pretended “victimhood” while they victimize the world in defense of Israel’s expansion. It’s very subversive and pretends to be humanitarian, much like the United States pretends to be a humanitarian democracy. I am concerned that Russia will succumb to Zionist interests. The Rothchild world banking dynasty was behind the post WW1 Balfour Declaration that stated the creation of Israel.
That is only a very small picture of Zionism and it’s history and influence on the world.

Yes everything you say is true and I kind of know all that. So then I am asking did Zionists use communism to destroy some part of Russian society? Did Zionism use communism to co-opt the Russian revolution? Also is Zionism the driving force or is there a higher force that uses Zionism to achieve it’s own nefarious ends?

‘The society that organises production anew on the basis of the free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machine where it will then belong: in the museum of antiquities side by side with the spinning wheel and the bronze axe’ (Engels, Anti-Duhring, 1878).

This China series has indeed been a thought-provoking and erudite collection of insights into the re-birth of a country.
Mr Mazaheri has written with deep conviction and passion, almost with an echo of an ancient connection between two civilizations that will be linked again on the Belt and Road.
The legendary Three Jewel Admiral Zheng He , who led the world’s greatest navy in its age on epic voyages from China to Africa, came from a Moslem family in Yunnan believed by some historians to have originated from Persia. ( Curious though, that he didn’t sail there, lol!)
The melon – a juicy staple of humid Chinese summers – had its roots in the land of Omar Khayyam probably at some time before him, according to Zheng Nian in Life & Death In Shanghai, the author’s account of Cultural Revolution upheaval.
In the emerging multipolar world, modern Iran will again surely have more to offer the world than just oil.

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